Overdrive’s Pride & Polish has a long and storied history in trucking, launching in 1990 at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Kentucky, with “just a handful of trucks,” according to former Pride & Polish organizer Linda Meaux in 2020 reporting around the event’s 30th anniversary.
When the COVID pandemic shut down most of the world outside trucking in 2020 and in-person events were sidelined for the year, GATS was discontinued altogether and Overdrive editors scrambled to bring Pride & Polish to an online format.
Six years later, those virtual events have run their course, with participation flagging a little more each year as the truck-show circuit began to roar back to life in 2021, more in 2022 and on through subsequent years.
Overdrive's been out there on the circuit, too, bringing weekly close looks at owner-operators' competing rigs through the Custom Rigs video series and other feature stories in that mammoth section of the website. (Showing at the big SuperRigs event in Bristol next week? Look for our video editor Lawson Rudisill out on the show lot.)
As referenced alongside the recent video featuring past Pride & Polish champ Michael Castaldi and his big-bunk 2003 Peterbilt 379, Pride & Polish as a truck show competition is no longer, but its 35-plus-year legacy lives as all that pride, all that polish merges with Overdrive’s extensive Custom Rigs truck-show coverage -- and readers' rigs all around the country.
Keep tuned to the Custom Rigs playlist on our Youtube channel for this new branding near the starting line for each featured video moving ahead.
Regular visitors to OverdriveOnline.com may notice something a little different about the site today, as the longtime “Custom Rigs” section at the top of the site has been replaced in name by “Pride & Polish.”
While Overdrive is discontinuing the virtual competition, the competitive spirit of Pride & Polish doesn't go with it. We’ll hold a bracket-style challenge at the end of the year showcasing owner-operators featured in Pride & Polish videos throughout the calendar year.
For most of you, it's no doubt a small change. But for all our past competitors looking forward to putting your work up against your peers', truck shows aren't the only venues to share your working custom creations. Reach out to me directly in email or add your rig and some of its details to the Reader Rigs gallery -- always an avenue to get my attention, be assured. Some of the most elaborate and/or truly awe-inspiring custom work we've reported on started that way, with an entry in the gallery, followed by interviews and further reporting work.
Keep it coming.
Regular readers can still expect weekly videos featuring impressive rigs Overdrive editors caught at shows or elsehwere via Overdrive’s YouTube channel and here on the site, likewise working and otherwise notable trucks added to that Reader Rigs gallery.
Subscribers to the weekly Custom Rigs newsletter, which hits email inboxes on Friday evenings, will also notice the rebranding to Overdrive’s Pride & Polish.
And I'll say that while today marks the official end of an era for Pride & Polish, I'm excited for its future -- we're looking forward to meeting many of you on the truck show lots across the country down the line and here in the virtual space.
Like I said, keep up the good work. Keep it coming.
[Related: After 30 years of show truck evolution, Pride & Polish still boasts ‘best of our industry’]
